Clues
by betawho
Summary: Diaries aren't the only way to present clues to their twisted timelines. And the Doctor drops an unexpected bombshell about River's past.


River stepped back and turned off her torch pistol, she considered the symbol she'd just burned into the bottom rung of the Tardis railing.

"There!" she said with quiet satisfaction. "Now if you'll just get rid of the smoke?" she asked, waving a hand at the cloud of metal smoke around her head.

The Tardis extractor fans came on, silently, she grinned to notice, and whisked the smoke away.

The red glow of the symbol faded and as she watched the edges expanded, smoothing into perfect curves. By the time it cooled it had formed a perfect Seal of Rassilon. Looking like it had always been there as part of the architecture. The Doctor would never notice it now.

She would though, every time she came in the Tardis door. And she'd know it was after their wedding in his timeline. She grinned. She looked up at the console, "Thanks, Sweetie."

"Who are you talking to?" The Doctor yawned and stumbled down the stairs. His hair was sticking up, and he was wearing a dressing gown. Tweed, of course.

River turned nonchalantly, hiding her cheat behind her back. "No one. I was just visiting with the Tardis."

"Ah, your other mother. I should have known." He boinked her teasingly on the nose with one fingertip.

She swiped at his hand and caught the finger. She placed a little kiss on the fingertip. He blushed. Bless.

"You mentioned that before, in Berlin, that I was the Child of the Tardis."

He nodded. "You're lucky, you've got four parents. I knew a girl who had seven fathers once..."

"What? _Four_ parents? If you're counting Kovarian...!"

"No, no, no, no. I mean, Amy and Rory, obviously, the Tardis, and your Time Lord father."

"What? What Time Lord father? I know you like to think I'm part Time Lord, sweetie, but I'm really just an augmented human." She rubbed a hand up and down his tweed lapel in consolation.

He grinned at her. He shook his head. "They could augment your strength and speed and intelligence, useful tools for an assassin, but they couldn't augment what wasn't there."

"Regeneration," she said. She looked up at the time rotor. "That was only possible because of being conceived in the Time Vortex."

"Really?" he asked. It was obvious he was egging her on. She scowled.

"That's why they kidnapped me," she explained, as if to a dolt. "Since I was infused with temporal energy from conception, they could use that to make me into a facsimile Time Lord."

"River, all my Companions pick up time energy, Artron energy, from traveling with me. That doesn't make them Time Lords."

"But..." she scowled, her mind racing.

"And you didn't get Mels' lovely dark skin color from Amy and Rory."

She stared at him.

"No offense, but Amy is about as pale as it's possible to get without being transparent. And you didn't get those muscles from Rory.

No, I saw your DNA, remember, Human _and_ Time Lord."

"But," she paled, aghast. "It wasn't _yours_ was it?"

"No!" he jerked back. He too remembered their activities of the last few hours.

"No, I checked. It wasn't mine. Kovarian's group must have found some trace DNA somewhere. Before the Time Lock Time Lords were all over time and space, renegades and researchers. It wouldn't be hard."

River stared down at herself. "Could we take a sample?" she asked, intrigued. "Find out who it was?"

He shook his head. "Sorry, no. The Tardis doesn't carry full Time Lord DNA information. Biodata extracts were kept under lock and key on Gallifrey. For exactly this sort of reason, actually."

River chewed on her lip. She'd always wondered why she didn't look more like Amy and Rory. "Could we extrapolate from a sample? Filter out Amy and Rory's DNA and reconstruct what he must have looked like?"

He shook his head. "Time Lord DNA is too fragmented, all those regenerations, there would be no telling if we'd put the pieces back together correctly. But..."

She looked up. "But?" she asked, eyes eager.

He grinned. "I'm betting it was the Corsair. He got around almost as much as me," he said smugly.

River cocked her head. "I thought you told Amy the Corsair was a woman."

"He was, sometimes. And he was a bad, bad girl." He leaned forward and leaned his nose against hers. "She'd have _loved_ you."

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